Amy stared at herself in the mirror.

“I hate you,” she said to her reflection, and meant it. She picked up a pair of gleaming silver scissors.

Snip went the first cut, and a lock of brown hair fell into the sink. Snip went the second, and the third. As the minutes passed each cut grew more vicious. Soon, blood mixed with hair in the sink. Before an hour had passed, all of Amy’s shoulder-length hair was gone. Her scalp stung.

“Ow,” she said, and her eyes watered. She stared at her face. Red eyes and ruined hair. She stood there a long time.

“I hate you!” she screamed suddenly, and stabbed the mirror. The tip of the closed shears screeched against the glass and paved a long, deep scratch. She forced them in to the end of the mirror, and took out some of the wood frame. Amy dropped the scissors. They made a thud in the sink, cushioned by the nest of hair. She began to cry.

“Why?” she asked as her face crumpled and she sank to the floor. Hot tears fell on the tiled floor and she wrapped her arms around herself. “Why?” she asked again in a tiny voice thick with tears. The words blurred. She cried for herself, for all the people in the world, and for her hair. “God, help me.” A whisper. The tears fell fast and freely. “Please, God,” she begged, sobbing. “Help me. Don’t leave m-” her throat closed. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered. “Please don’t leave me too.”